


When We Come Home

by NoirAngel011



Series: Snapshots Of The March Girls; From 1861 To 1865 [3]
Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Arguments, Best Friends, Character Death Mentioned, F/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirAngel011/pseuds/NoirAngel011
Summary: Laurie and Jo, growing, learning, and ever-changing.Because they didn’t get what they deserved, and so many scenes could have been expanded upon. Kind of a mish-mash, different scenes thrown together and a change to their actual closure scene. This one takes place before Laurie leaves to marry Amy but after Jo leaves for New York and comes back.. Based off the 2017 miniseries.
Relationships: Friedrich Bhaer/Josephine March, Theodore Laurence & Josephine March
Series: Snapshots Of The March Girls; From 1861 To 1865 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566445
Kudos: 5





	When We Come Home

Jo was beautiful, that’s all there was to it.

Her freckles spread out across her face like angel kisses. Less that Beth but more than Meg. Her blue eyes sparkled when she laughed. And her hair, her hair so long and captivating. Chestnut brown with hints of a lighter color somewhere between blonde and brown. 

But her beauty wasn’t just her looks. Her personality was what made her truly perfect.

Her sarcastic banter, her strong-willed temper, the way she expressed herself with her writing. Everything about her was the ideal girl. Of course Laurie fell in love with her.

When he kissed her, when he tried to show her how much she meant to him, she turned him down. She shut him out, and that hurt worse than getting shot in war.

His best friend, his companion. She shut him out and he felt betrayed. 

“I want to be your… comfortable friend,” she whispered in the dead of the night, her blue eyes meeting his with hesitation in them. Like she didn't want to hurt him but knew what had to be said. 

Laurie leaned away. When Jo hadn’t kissed him back, he assumed that she didn’t know what she was doing. But after, he realized why. She didn’t feel the same way about him that he did about her.

That was one of the most crushing things Laurie had ever heard.

Laurie wasn’t the only one who had been hurt. Jo was shattered, maybe even more than he was.

He left her, and he knew what he did to her. Laurie left Jo when she needed him most, and he wasn’t blind to the pain he had inflicted on her. He had hurt her terribly. They fought and argued, just as Jo said they would, but Laurie could see the pain in her eyes.

She didn’t want to fight, she wanted to be happy. Even if everything had been ripped apart.

Beth was gone, Meg had a family of her own, Amy had left them for another country. Laurie was the one constant, and then he left her too.

Laurie had a right to be mad at Jo as well, she hurt him just as much.

She left, fled for New York because she couldn’t deal with her own problems. And there, Laurie knew she had been swept off her feet by another man. Seeing the letters, her soft handwriting spelling out the name of her new lover, was the worst pain he had ever felt. Worse than kiss, worse than Jo leaving.

Then she said that she would kill herself.

“Teddy, I’m sorry. I’m so desperately sorry”

“I'd kill myself if I thought it would help! 

She kneeled in front of him, the spring grass soft beneath her bare feet. Laurie was crying silently now, still stunned from her previous words. When she said claimed she didn’t love him.

Did Jo really think that way? His strong, independent, caring Jo? No, that wasn’t the girl he knew. But here she was, and changed person. No longer a girl but an experienced woman. 

“In what way would that help, Jo?”

“It would be easier than making myself love you when I don’t!”

“Some people manage it!”

“I don’t believe in that sort of love, and I don’t intend to try.”

“I have something to tell you,” she stopped their bickering, her voice softening.

“Is it about that old man?” 

“What old man?”

“That professor you’re always writing home about.”

“Professor Bhaer?”

“We’re friends, Laurie.”

“We talk about literature and plays and-” He cut her off.

“You go to philosophical symposiums together!

“We went to one philosophical symposium

“If you tell me you love him, I’ll be the one who kills myself!”

“I haven’t the least idea of loving Professor Bhaer or anyone else!”

“You will in the end!”

“And so will you in the end,” Jo stopped.

“You grew out your hair.” She touched her soft curls gently.

“I thought you might care for it.” He found himself matching Jo’s soft tone as well.

And she told him to be sensible. He told her he loved her once more and she turned him away.

Why would he expect anything different? 

It was constant. The back and forth, they could never be in the same room without getting onto the other’s nerves. Everyone was fed up with them, and they were too.

“Jo, Laurie. Come in here!” they heard Robert call from his study. They had been in the parlor, fighting over the stupidest of things. It had started as a friendly, childish debate, and had ended as a full-blown heated argument. 

They sat down in front of his desk, on a bench he had dragged into the room.

“You two have got to stop this. You used to be so close, what happened?”

He reached across the desk, taking Jo’s shaking hand. She looked like she was about to cry.

“I don’t know! I want to know what happened myself!” she turned to Laurie.

“I’m sorry okay! It’s just-” He trailed off. Neither of them knew exactly why they were always fighting.

“You need to figure it out, because you’re never going to get better unless you have a real, heart-to-heart conversation and figure out what’s wrong.”

Jo nodded, Laurie following suit. 

“How about I ask some questions, and you say what’s on your minds. Hopefully, we can discover the root of this issue that way.” Robert asked them, and both of them nodded again.

“When did this start?”

Jo hummed in thought for a moment.

“When we were in the field, and we started fighting over who I loved.” Jo whispered, looking down at her shoes. She twirled her fingers around in her skirt.

“Really? That’s when it was?” Laurie asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“For me, yes. Did you think it was a different time point?” she looked up at him with watering eyes. She was so completely overwhelmed with hundreds of emotions, she wanted to laugh and cry and scream all at the same time.

“After our kiss, the first time you said you didn’t feel the same.” Laurie almost felt embarrassed to say these things with her father right in front of him. He tried to keep his eyes on Jo, but he could feel Mr. March’s gaze bearing into him.

“Oh, maybe it was then. But really that was my fault, I shouldn't have been as harsh as I was.” Jo shook her head.

“It wasn’t you, it was me. I should have made sure you were comfortable. I took advantage of you, really.” He felt like the things he was saying were way too vulgar to say to Jo’s face, but he wanted to find out what was going on with them. He wanted them to go back to normal, go back to being friends. 

“Don’t say it like that. I’m not angry about that, not anymore.”

They both went went quiet, unaware of what to say.

Jo looked between Laurie and her father.

She slipped her hand out of her father’s holding it out to Laurie.

“Start over, please?”

Laurie smiled.

“Of course.”

He took her hand gladly and she let him pull her up off the bench, leading her out of the room.

Mr. March smiled, watching as they retreated into the house.

They were the best of friends, and would always find a way to fix things in the end. No matter how hurt or broken they were.


End file.
